From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: From: erik quanstrom Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:46:10 -0400 To: 9fans@9fans.net In-Reply-To: <4B8EF2BE3979C2B3276A4E0D@[192.168.1.2]> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] Simplified Chinese plan 9 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 6d9a5b5a-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 > > i'm not a linguist, but the linguists i know subscribe to the > > viewpoint that the written and spoken language are separate. > > and evolve separately. i would derive from this that writability > > is independent of pronouncability. > > If a sequence of symbols corresponds to something from a natural language > then it must be pronounceable since it must have been uttered at some time. > The same rule may not apply to "extensions" to natural language (acronyms, > stenography) or artificial languages (mathematics, computer programs). i believe this distinction between "natural" and "artificial" languages is, uh, arbitrary. think of the symbols that people im each other with. these are largely unpronouncable. and i've only heard a few ever pronunced at all. (rofl comes to mind, though that term predates my knowledge of text messaging). i also am not sure that there is such a thing as an extension to a language. natural languages never have sharp boundaries and are pretty dynamic. when did "byte" become a word? when did "gift" become a verb? look how fast text-ese has evolved. my concept of a language looks more like a standard deviation than a box. - erik